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C-12 Logging Railway Set (1974)

Originally written July 25, 2025

The C-12 Logging Railway Set (C-12しんりんてつどうセット), released in 1974, incorporated the great Cargo Loading and Unloading Station log loader gimmicks of the era as well as the recently-introduced C-12 steam locomotive with an oval of track and accessories.

Unlike many sets of the era, this set had a second production run that had a slightly changed box. The later updated box seen here with age range changed from 2 to 8 to 2 to 6. Unfortunately, the panel showing the production date is missing from this copy... The ST mark, M2169009, dates it to Showa 49, or 1974, and this is the same number as on the earlier print run boxes.

Set contents

Quantity	Item	Photo
3 pieces	C-12 Steam Locomotive with two tipper cars
6	Logs
2	R-01 Straight Rail
8	R-03 Curve Rail
1	J-23 Country Station
2 pieces	Cargo Loading Station
8 pieces	Cargo Unloading Station
1	Row of trees
2	Standing Tree
2	Signal

This set includes a period C-12 steam locomotive with metal crank pins and the early style of coupling rods hauling two tipper wagons.

The C-12 has a front coupler, certainly different from the standard Plarail style and designed for the C-12 to push a rotary snowplow car in front of it, and it remained in the tooling and sufficient to push a few cars into the early 1990s. It also has a clicking "chuffing" noisemaker.

It hauls, of course, two log tipper wagons; yellow with green chassis and spring-loaded arms to make them tip. They are of early-mid 1970s construction as the C-12, and appear to be similar to those included in the previous DD-51 Diesel Train Set, although it looks like the production mark on the bottom was changed from saying Japan to Made in Japan.

Six Japan-production logs are included, a nice generous amount.

The focus of the set is the Plarail log loading gimmick that was first introduced in 1973. This being a later production copy of this set, the loading station has been changed to the style where the blue base section holds the lower trigger arm and the white log loader section interlocks with it (earlier versions had a hollow square in the base and a taller white piece with the trigger sticking out of it.

The unloader is also updated from previous versions, although this change was present from the introduction of this set.

The red roof with hanging "かもつえき" or freight station sign is now held up with a tall support in the style of the station platform supports instead of simply round.

The fenced corral is made up of three pieces made of a soft plastic. If a second "hooked" section was acquired, a full square fence could be made, which was actually the original use of these fence sections as a yellow animal pen in the early 1970s farmyard diorama accessory set.

A standard Country Station of the day, still fairly early on in its production, is included - this one still has the tablet taped down at the base of the tablet hook. I like the design of this rural station, and it fits in nicely with the idea of a logging operation.

So too do the smaller accessories fit the logging theme, with two semaphore signals and standing trees as well as a line of trees.

There is really only an oval of regular rail in this set, standard roughtop rail of the era, with the loader and unloader making up one of the straight rail lengths on each side of the suggested oval layout.

When I bought it, the original instructions were also included! They are more than 50 years old... These are my oldest Plarail instructions - many of the simple sets did not come with any instructions other than what was on the box until the later 1980s, although I guess the construction of the fence and log loader as well as the required direction of travel warranted printing instruction sheets. It does not seem they made a new version of the instructions for this later production run, and they still show the older style of log loader.

The oval layout is nothing that impressive, but the log loading and unloading gimmick is excellent and classic Plarail and there is a great selection of other accessories to go along with them, as well as a good amount of logs to let the train run around several times. On the left is the suggested setup, and on the right I swapped the loader and unloader. Click the GIFs to see the videos with the sounds of the chuffing noisemaker and the log loading and unloading operations.

Because of the front coupling, you can get away with having the train push one of the cars in front - if you try with two, the front car often jams against the loader.

Set name	C-12 Logging Railway Set C-12しんりんてつどうセット	Release period	1974-~1975
Train rating		Track rating
Accessory rating		Overall
Notes:

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